SOLVED: Pulse Secure VPN SYSTEM ERROR on Host Checker In Browser

If you see a SYSTEM ERROR popup dialog box when running a Pulse Secure VPN from a Browser you may have a permissions issue that is easy to fix.

In my case I went through all of the usual trouble shooting steps:

• Reset the browser to factory
• Try IE and Chrome
• Uninstall all Pulse software and clean the registry
• Manually install all Pulse software
• …

and then I spent the better part of a week with Pulse Secure technical support when it hit me that it might be a permissions issue.  I had added the Pulse software into a Windows 10 1803 lab PC, then used SYSPREP to have it build an image, then I uploaded it to a Windows Deployment Services server.

The solution was to change the permissions on C:\USERS\<WDS account> to AUTHENTICATED USERS = FULL CONTROL.  <WDS account> is whatever name you used to build the profile in before SYSPREPing it.